Queen's University alumnus and former Gaels student-athlete Jock Climie moderated the Smith School of Business Alumni Toronto Chapter panel discussion on the business of sport on Wednesday. Lights, Camera, Action - The Business of Sports discussed how to adapt to rapid change while rebounding and renewing your game plan to adapt to an exciting new future.
 
Climie played for Queen's Football for four seasons from 1986-1989 and was inducted into the Queen's Football Hall of Fame before a 12-year career in the Canadian Football League.
 
Climie, who also served as a CFL commentator for TSN, sat down to talk about his careers in sports and law, and the business of sports.
 
How closely are you still following the Canadian Football League and Canadian sports in general, from both a fan and a business perspective?
 
There are some things that really interest me and then I might do a little more digging. I watch SportsCentre every morning pretty religiously and sort of go from there.
 
What are some of the biggest changes in the business side of the sport since your playing days?
 
In some ways I don't think much has changed. Certainly, in the big sports like NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB, obviously the money has gotten sillier. 
 
The one thing that was just starting to move in this direction in the 90s is the separation between the haves and have-nots on every team has grown wider. The Blind Side is a great example of that where back in the 80s, all the offensive linemen made (the same). And the quarterback would make some more. There would be certain positions that would make more, but everyone was treated the same. 
 
It doesn't matter what sport you look at, it became abundantly clear to sports management that your stars on every team are exponentially more important to winning than your non-stars. That's probably the biggest change, you've got a few guys on every team making absurd amounts of money. And then you've got some people who are in the middle. And then you've got people who are all at the bottom end and who are expendable. The reality for those guys is they either become a superstar or their careers will be very short.
 
One other thing that has changed from my days is social media. I made a conscious decision every day about whether I was going to buy a newspaper or not, and read about what they were saying about me or my team. And I could just simply make the decision not to go buy a paper.
 
Whereas today, you turn your phone on, you're going to hear about yourself. I would find that exceedingly difficult. 
 
Even when I was a broadcaster, they made us be on Twitter until they didn't, and I couldn't wait to get off it because of the ignorant things people would say. But there's lots of athletes, just like people, who get caught up in what's out there on social media and how they're being portrayed and reflected and that can have a real impact on an athlete.
 
Has that change been driven from a roster-building standpoint or more from the market and making money?
 
I think the market for it is great but talent drives these things. And that's not a lot different from my law firm, for example. If you look at any law firm, you're going to see some people making a whole lot of money and some people not making as much. You could be forgiven for wondering why there could be that big a different, that somebody deserves to make that much more than everybody else, and the reality is that's because they have talent. The kind of talent that can win championships for you is very, very rare so that's why those guys should make obscene amounts of money.
 
What was the transition to broadcast like and was it tough to criticize players as a former player?
 
It was quite an adjustment from that standpoint. The one thing that was all too familiar was just trying to be the best you can be. That part came very naturally to me. Right away, I realized you sit at home and watch these guys and you think they just show up, slap a tie on them, and away they go. But like anything else, there are good football analysts and there are bad ones. It took me one broadcast to figure that out. And I was determined not to be one of the bad ones.
 
There's only so much you can do in that regard, personalities play so much a part of it and that's something people don't often recognize. Personalities aside though, there are some things broadcasters can do to be better: do research, be thoughtful, be analytical, break things down, don't talk over your viewers head, don't talk beneath them either.
 
Criticizing players that you played with and criticizing players that you might bump into at the field, and we all got accosted more than once and had some player swear at us as they ran by us, that was really hard and totally unfair, but a really hard part of the job. You'd be tempted to moderate your opinions, knowing that you didn't want to have to face that guy in the locker room. There are lots of broadcasters who won't speak their mind for that reason, and it's a reality and again, going back to social media, 25 years ago there was a good chance a commentator could say something and it would never get back to the player. There is zero chance of that happening today.
 
How different is a competitive drive in football to a competitive drive in the business or law world?
 
All of it is easily transferable. You either take pride in what you do or you don't. Either what you do to make a buck is something that you try to do to your absolute best ability or it's just a means to make a dollar and your focus is really on other things.

If you want to be the best at what you do, it doesn't really matter what you're doing, you better bring that same level of focus to it. I've always believed that high-level athletes who've had to really work and struggle to get to where they were, are people that I look to hire first. At the very least, they understand that hard work translates into results better than anything else. And the other thing about playing at a high level, is that once you get to a high level, you find out that talent doesn't just carry the day. You have to really be at a high level to get to that point.
 
I asked earlier what the biggest change in the sports business world has been since your playing days, what do you think the biggest change in the future will be?
 
I think so much of it depends on the sport you're talking about. Certainly all the diversity issues are obviously front page news at the moment. The role that athletes play in terms of social commentary. They all have a platform because they're all on social media.
 
I think the social justice component to sports and how athletes will play a role in that is interesting and something to keep an eye on but I'm not convinced that's going to change sports because at the end of the day owners pay players to make plays and win championships. If you can do that better than the next guy, you'll get paid. But if you can't, it doesn't matter what you're saying or not saying on social media, they'll get somebody else.